Interviewing with full time finance job

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akhart

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Hi all - I work in finance and am not able to tell them I'm applying to med school without losing my job. I can likely take off some Fridays without it being an issue but wanted to get thoughts from others. I applied to 30 schools probably wouldn't so more than 10 interviews (if I'm even offered that many). Do you think this is possible? Anybody in a similar situation?

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Hi all - I work in finance and am not able to tell them I'm applying to med school without losing my job. I can likely take off some Fridays without it being an issue but wanted to get thoughts from others. I applied to 30 schools probably wouldn't so more than 10 interviews (if I'm even offered that many). Do you think this is possible? Anybody in a similar situation?

You aren't going to know if it's possible until you see how many and which interviews you start getting. It's going to be tough to get by only with Fridays, though. I found that many Friday interviews required me to take off Thursday as well, since interviews often start early in the morning. Too early to do substantial travel that morning and show up in shape to do an interview. Monday interviews were actually better for me because I could travel on Sunday, do the Monday interview, travel back late Monday night, and show up at work exhausted but at least present on Tuesday morning. I also did a lot of midweek half-days (ie, half day of work on Tuesday, travel Tues night, interview Weds morning, late-night travel back and back at work Thurs morning).

It'll also heavily depend on where you are in the country. I was in the northeast and interviewing in the northeast, south, and midwest only and it was still hard. If you're on the West Coast coming East you'll have a harder time.

Good luck. Holding down a full-time job while interviewing was hard and I had a boss who knew exactly what I was doing and was happy for me. I also got an acceptance in mid November that let me cancel several interviews.
 
They don't give you vacation or sick days? I was in the same situation as you are. I have always been paranoid about saving up my sick days and vacation for emergencies. When I got interviews I called in "sick", or scheduled a 3 day weekend. Having your Fridays free is a huge bonus. If they schedule you on a Wed interview, then get a ticket to fly out on Tuesday night, go to your interview and fly back on Wed. night.

There are many ways you can fly under the radar.
 
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If you can't schedule the time off I would call in. Your employer doesn't need to know why you aren't coming in. :)
 
Hey folks, added on question: how far in advance do you usually know about these interviews?

My longest lead time was over three months. Shortest was about four days (with option to have scheduled a week or two later). It varies a lot. Most schools give you the ability to choose dates in a range or at least are open to rescheduling to a later time.
 
You don't get any vacation time?
 
This thread isn't too old to bump.

My DH is in a similar position. He has a lot of vacation days that he saved up for interviews, but now his work doesn't want to let him use them for the rest of the calendar year. He's sending in secondaries right now, so obviously no invites yet, but if he does get lucky enough to get a few, just how bad is it to push back the interviews until January? Are there (m)any places that won't allow you to push back interviews until later? I know some schools hand out acceptances before the end of the year, but I don't know how common that is or how crucial it is to interview before then if you manage to get early invites.
 
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